There is a dark place; a very dark place. And it’s cold, too; but that’s okay. People say you can’t feel it. They say you can’t hear anything there either. There’s nothing to hear; not that you’d want to. You don’t know where you are when you’re there. You only know who you are. You don’t remember anyone or anything else; except maybe math. They say in the darkness there’s a fine line between silence and mathematical formulas. This darkness-- it isn’t a depression or an apathy. It’s a bliss. It’s an ignorant bliss, because most people can’t see in the dark.


“He says he doesn’t have any.”

“Most people don’t.” Eve looks up as she replies to Amber’s painfully confused comment. She still doesn’t understand, “How can someone just not have any emotions?”

“It’s just how some people are,” Eve continues, “Daddy used to not have any then--”

“Then he met Mom?”

“No. Then he--” her lack of knowledge slows her speech.

“He what?”

“Well I don’t know, Bamb! Dinner’s probably ready. Let’s go in.”

So they leave the serenity of wherever they are. It’s some unmarked, unnamed place that has meant the world to them since their tiny feet were allowed to find it. There all that can be heard are the desperate chirpings of birds, a highway far behind a chain-link fence, and small, girly chat. The kind of chat that is reason to wake up in the morning; intense debate that gets soaked up by soft green grass on this little mound to which Amber and her older sister must have been a life-source.

Amber asks, “He is strange, isn’t he?”

“Who? Oh. You sure talk about him a lot.” Eve’s body is pushing through wilderness, struggling to reach the warmth of their townhome. She wants to see Amber’s cheeks a pretty red color, so continues, “You got a crush?”

Eve whirls around, her mind a little rubric ready to score. Ah! Scarlett. No… Crimson!

Just as sarcastically, Amber returns with, “DO YOU?”

The rest of the short trek home is relatively silent, except for Amber’s “I just think he’s weird, that’s all.”

There’s the back door. Amber speeds in front of her sister to walk in, but as expected in this sibling power struggle the bigger one manages to get her foot in the door first and arrogantly turns to say, “I gave your cheeks a three and a half.”

There’s broken china on the kitchen floor, a blaring sports channel in the living room, and parents no where to be found: time for two chocolate pudding cups (without spoons) and watching cartoons at the quiet end of the house till bedtime. The girls knew this and didn’t mind proceeding with the routine on school nights.

“Mom’s passed out on her bed.”

Amber’s small blue eyes keep their stare on the swirl of pretty singing, dancing, laughing colors in spite of the comment; silently acknowledging Eve’s discovery.

For the first time that night, Eve notices Amber’s shoes. On days when the girls rely on Eve’s responsibility for survival, Amber is thrown a hoodie and doesn’t double-check to see if her shoes match.

“David says he likes ‘em,” Amber explains modestly.

“He tried to talk to me today.”

“And?” Amber wants to hear everything.

“I was nice.”

“Good.”

Though the next few commercials, the girls talk about his emotionless face, his faceless pets, his old town and his old friends, and every confusing conversation they have had with him since he came to their lucky community.

Amber knows more than Eve does, “He used to know a girl named Luke Carlisle. Her dad was a furniture maker. He drew David a diagram of a circle’s insides, so he’d never get lost.”

The girls, always feeling they weren’t hearing the whole story, never once questioned the logic that allowed for this method of navigation.

Eve continues for her sister, “and Luke gave him a rabbit with only three legs.”

“Only three legs?” And so the small, girly chat is soaked up by soft green shag carpeting.

“Remember our bunny, Eve?”

“Yeah,”

Amber recalls, “He was white and fluffy with a little pink nose; but he wasn’t very soft.”

“I miss him,” Eve admits. She stands up, walks to her dresser, and opens the top drawer. “Well what about Johnny Rover?”

“Who?” Amber asks.

“He told me he had a friend in fourth grade named Johnny Rover. He could spit popcorn seeds twenty feet,”

Amber looks at her sister in awe.

“and he knew how to drive-- a car!” Eve continues.

Amber likes David. He’s interesting; but maybe too interesting.

Amber asks, “He’s a dirty liar, isn’t he?”

Eve gives her little sister’s shoulder a fierce tap and says, “Mom would whip you hard for saying that!”

“But Eve, everyone has emotions and no one has a green cat. I’m ashamed to be in the same grade.”

“Did he say he has a green cat, too?”

He didn’t, but that would be pretty interesting.

“Eve,” Amber looks up and sees her sister slipping a nightgown over her elder head, “tomorrow let’s have a picnic on the mound.”

“We can’t, Bamb. It’s getting too cold to sit out there on the grass.”

“Too cold?” Amber is shocked.

“Things are changing.”

“Yeah right. Like what?”

“The weather.”

Amber, almost understanding, asks, “Not just the weather, huh?”

“Like Mom and Dad. Like you and me.”

“…school,” Amber contributes.

“Yeah; but all I mean is we can find stuff inside to do,” Eve proposes.

“You know what David told me?” Amber says, “He told me change is good, and it’s good to think about it. It’s good to think about stuff, hard.”

“He’s really gotten interesting.”

“I know. I didn’t think he would get this interesting when I first made him up.”


Society will call broken glass dangerous, then point to the nearest person and tell the world he broke the plate. The world will then proudly alert the executioner. This is the procedure and everyone involved in it enjoys their job. The world finds mistakes for the fun of finding them, and lets society brand them unnecessary. If the common people of the world ruled, they would tell us that imagination belongs in a uniform and rainbows belong hidden under duct tape in a cardboard box labeled ‘Useless.’ They would say to fill your cabinets with Styrofoam dinnerware, because if you throw that at your husband is won’t break on his forehead. And, I’m sure the world and its people would love to get their hands on two little girls, make them a healthy dinner, get them into bed on time, rescue them from their “unstable” environment, and save them from the evils of character traits, because circumstance is usually wrong. But if only they could see past their own rules, and find something left unconsidered. Behind a chain-link fence, on a grassy mound, inside pink cheeks lying in bed there is a darkness; and, surprisingly, it’s as bright as the Sun.

But this is all hearsay.